


where is the way that the light is divided

by dafirenze



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 12:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8578156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafirenze/pseuds/dafirenze
Summary: It takes Adéwalé a long time to adjust to Edward Kenway.





	

It takes Adéwalé a long time to adjust to Edward Kenway.

 

It’s all fast and bright and over saturated, like Edward has drenched the world in light and colour and Adéwalé is a blind man learning to see. There’s always ship after ship, and they plunder and capture and the crew comes alive under the benevolent rule of their captain. Adéwalé still feels the sting of being denied the opportunity, but seeing Edward command the ship like he and the Jackdaw are made the same – terrifying and god defying – allows him to settle.

 

It’s not until they lose their first crew member that the colour starts to fade. He’s young, barely out of adolescence. Adéwalé feels bad that he never knew the kid well enough to properly mourn, but Edward behaves as though he felt the bullet tear through his waist as well. He blames himself, even if he does his best to hide his guilt. It’s an ill-concealed wound. At that moment, Adéwalé learns that as hard as he tries to deny it, Edward feels loss the same way he feels everything else, all-encompassing and violent.

 

Adéwalé doesn’t know if he really believes in God, but he believes in energy, and power, and thing too bright for mortal eyes. Edward isn’t God, far from it – Adéwalé doesn’t think that God would be so cruel to himself – but there’s something about his grin and halo of blonde hair that makes Adéwalé feel like he needs to avert his eyes, least he incur the wrath of something holy.

 

The people Edward surrounds himself with are people who know loss. They all pretend to care for nothing but gold and rum, but Adéwalé knows where to look. He wonders if Edward collects damaged people out of some kind of primal desire to fix the broken, or because it’s easier to assess your own ruin when you compare it to that of others.

 

Soon, the charade wears thin. The way Edward talks about searching and finding treasure beyond anything they have ever seen before, and maybe he can convince the crew, but Adéwalé sees the way he pilots the ship. Not like a someone craving adventure and riches, but the hopeless effort of a desperate man, running from something he no longer recognises. Edward never stays in one place long enough for people to attach themselves to him, constantly shifting and rearranging.

 

The ocean has always unsettled Adéwalé, something so powerful screaming – _I was here first, and I will still be here when you are gone_   – but Edward rises against it like God is issuing him a challenge. He steers head first into waves and fights creatures from the deep armed with only a spear, drunk on a kind of recklessness that Adéwalé has never felt. He figures that this is why Edward will always be slightly out of focus, slightly out of reach.

 

Adéwalé is surprised it took him so long to realise that Edward is living with a bullet in his chest. It’s a heavy load to carry, and Adéwalé thinks Edward feels it the most in the early mornings, when they are lying side by side – _finally equals_ – and Edward just, breathes. It takes him a while to become a person again in the morning, because finding himself amongst all that scar tissue built around his heart is no easy journey.

 

 _Setting himself on fire so he can light the way seems to be one of Edward’s favourite things to do_ – Mary tells Adéwalé one night. They’re both sitting together, watching the man they love pacing around Charles Vane, trying to come up with some impossible plan that will seem conceivable when he explains it to them later. Adéwalé pretends not to hear her when Mary says – _for how much longer are you going to play this game?_ Adéwalé doesn’t tell her that he would never feel warm again if Edward wasn’t standing beside him.

 

Edward wouldn’t know how to leave a person even if his life depended on it, and that’s what keeps him crawling back. Adéwalé knows, that somewhere deep and buried in Edward’s heart, he truly believes that – _after just one more big score, Adé_ – he will go back home to Caroline, and she will welcome him with loving arms. Adéwalé tries to cut the thread between them but it’s a half-hearted attempt with a blunt knife, so when he leaves Edward ripped open on the beach, he knows it’s only a matter of time.

 

 _You can’t live here, Edward, you can’t make a home in anger_ – Adéwalé says one night, when the fires have died and the air is cold on his skin.

Edward doesn’t respond for a long while, but then so quiet it is almost lost to the wind – _it’s the only home I know_.


End file.
